Promised
by Pyg
Summary: Oneshot set in the summer after HBP, the night before the trio leave to search for the horcruxes, HG.


**Another attempt at a sad Harry and Ginny oneshot, it's really only because I listen to depressing music all day and this is the only thing I can write about. Actually right now I really want to read one of those lovely ridiculous 20 chapterfics about a Muggle Studies project. That's not the point though, enjoy:**

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Dark silhouettes of boxes filled the room, in the garden below the wedding party carried on and the light from the festivities crossed through the air just far enough to illuminate the vague shapes of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. 

She pushed her head against his chest, her fingers grasping at the back of his t-shirt. Someone had once called her strong, but now she felt weak, so helpless in his arms.

He thought she was strong. She was stronger than him; she held him up.

He'd once called her beautiful, but now with her face stained with tears, her eyes swollen, she wondered how he could ever have said it.

But he still thought she was beautiful. His own tears ran through her hair.

He would leave in the morning.

Before now she had not let herself cry. Before now she had decided to be the strong Ginny everyone thought she was.

Before now he had not let himself touch her. Before now he had walked about in a dreamlike state, convinced that at the last minute she'd look at him in that way she had of laughing at him without her mouth twitching. Then she'd tell him it was ok, they were just joking all along and he could stay and hold her like this forever.

It's not fair.

Ginny looked up into his face, she wanted to tell them that she couldn't handle the thought of life without him. She couldn't bear the thought that tomorrow morning he would leave and might never come back. She wanted to say that she would miss him so much it would hurt, she wanted to explain that when she thought about him dying the world stopped making sense.

She didn't need to tell him, because he felt the same. He'd thought every one of those things every single day since he had first kissed her, and still hadn't got used to the feeling.

"I won't leave you." he broke the silence with soft words which would be barely audible in anyone else's ears, but echoed inside her mind, and she cherished the sound of his voice.

He would leave her. Tomorrow morning he would go and take her brother and best friend with him, but somehow she knew what he meant.

He meant that he wouldn't stop thinking about her.

He meant that sometimes Ron would have to hit him to pull him out of his thoughts.

He meant that if he died she would be the last thought on his mind.

He meant if he lived it would be because of her.

Something inside her snapped, this hurt too much and she stepped away from him, and the mask of Strong Ginny covered her once more. She nodded.

In the half light of the room, with the laughter of the party below sounding vaguely in the room and her looking strong and beautiful even with tears dripping from her chin, he wondered whether to consider himself the luckiest or unluckiest in the world.

Then she kissed him softly on the lips, and the desicion was made for him. She turned and left the room.

That night, Ginny dreamed of last words and last kisses and black hair and black coffins. Harry did not dream, he did not sleep.

The next morning many tears were shed. Tonks and a Ministry auror were to accompany them as far as they could, but they knew that at some point even the best wizards in the country could not help the friends who had been fighting the Dark Lord since they were eleven years old.

Molly clutched a box of tissues, Arthur had tears in his eyes, and they smothered Ron as he attempted to say goodbye. Fred and George told him in a roundabout sort of way that he wasn't really that bad, Bill licked his face. Hermione hugged all of the Weasley's, she stayed longer with Ginny and whispered something in her ear. Ginny was not crying, but she gave the smile of someone who was. Harry stood motionless in the doorway, trying to force himself to remember everything. On the clock in the corner, all of the Weasley's faces pointed to Mortal Peril. His and Hermione's face had been added too.

Ginny watched them walk into the Burrow's back garden, and apparate away. She turned to face the kitchen full of her family.

"He'll be alright."

They looked at her with expressions varying from sadness to thinking her in denial.

"He'll be alright," she repeated, as if to convince herself of the fact.

She felt herself about to cry, but tried not to because if she couldn't be Strong Ginny she thought the whole world might fall apart.

He would be alright.

She needed him.

He knew she did.

So he'd be alright.

He wouldn't leave her.

He promised.


End file.
